Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
Speaker 1: those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and do not necessarily represent those of iHeart Media, Stuff Media,
Speaker 1: or its employees. Over the course of our investigation, we
Speaker 1: conducted nearly one interviews and combed through dozens of police
Speaker 1: records in old newspaper articles, We traveled to the crime
Speaker 1: sites and unearthed hours of archival footage that hadn't been
Speaker 1: heard since its original broadcast. It's easy to get lost
Speaker 1: in this fifty year old mystery. As we investigated the case,
Speaker 1: we met people who were there when it all started.
Speaker 1: Their stories are an important reminder that this case is
Speaker 1: rooted in a very real tragedy. Through all these conversations,
Speaker 1: we also discovered new facts about the case and began
Speaker 1: to see cracks in the stories engraved in the zodiac lore,
Speaker 1: even going back to the first attack in the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: the murders of Betty lu Jensen and David Faraday just
Speaker 1: five days before Christmas. By Lewis really head over heels
Speaker 1: for David. I didn't meet him until the night that
Speaker 1: they were killed, because they came to her house that night.
Speaker 1: My name was John Henslin and I grew up in Vaio, California.
Speaker 1: There was they Lewis, my sister's best friend since Kenny Garden.
Speaker 1: She came to the house Calle often. She drew a lot,
Speaker 1: and she was really into Snoopy and she wanted to
Speaker 1: be an artist. Vitty Lou and David came to her
Speaker 1: house that night and this was supposed to be their
Speaker 1: first date, which really wasn't their first date because they
Speaker 1: were seeing each other at school. He went to val
Speaker 1: High and she went to Hogan which was across town.
Speaker 1: But my sister said that they would always see each
Speaker 1: other lunchtime and stuff like that, so they were, you know,
Speaker 1: dating for a while, but officially as far as her
Speaker 1: parents were concerned, my sister she had a boyfriend that
Speaker 1: was a little bit older. At a car, her and
Speaker 1: Vitty Lou and David and her boyfriend were supposed to
Speaker 1: go to San Francisco. Was a story that they were
Speaker 1: telling my parents that night, and my sister's boyfriend was
Speaker 1: late showing up finding my sister said go wherever you
Speaker 1: need to go because I can't find my boyfriend, and
Speaker 1: she walked him into the car and they made plans
Speaker 1: to go up that next morning to go shopping and
Speaker 1: Vitty Lou and David drove off and that was the
Speaker 1: last time in we saw him. It really affected my
Speaker 1: sister a lot, because, you know, the phone rang the
Speaker 1: next morning. It was our friend across the street heard
Speaker 1: on radio that Bailey was killed, and my sister just
Speaker 1: went nuts. It was five days before Christmas and she
Speaker 1: was sixteen, and it just ruined everything for everybody. You know,
Speaker 1: it was pretty sad, and you know the things that
Speaker 1: went on with the the police and everything about you know,
Speaker 1: what they thought happened and when they're trying to find
Speaker 1: out what happened. And it was hard on my sister
Speaker 1: because in those days, they went down to the police
Speaker 1: station and talked to the detectives without my parents or anything,
Speaker 1: because you know, they didn't have that Miranda thing or
Speaker 1: any of that kind of stuff. And they were showing
Speaker 1: my sister the the bullets that came out of Betty
Speaker 1: Low and saying, you know, we know this was a
Speaker 1: drug deal and we need you to tell us what happened.
Speaker 1: And they went the next day and went through my
Speaker 1: sister's locker because herne Bailey shared a locker at school,
Speaker 1: and it was really hard on my sister, the way
Speaker 1: they treat her and where they try to get her
Speaker 1: to confess this big drug deal going bad that they
Speaker 1: thought it all was, but it never was anything to
Speaker 1: do with drugs because they were just you know, just
Speaker 1: say steam. They were really into that lifestyle at all,
Speaker 1: you know, even though my sister and boyfriend was one
Speaker 1: of the big drug dealers in town and he ended
Speaker 1: up odin later on anyhow, you know, but the cops
Speaker 1: thought it that's all it was, was some drug deal
Speaker 1: going bad and trying to get my sister to confess
Speaker 1: to what she knew of out it. They were really
Speaker 1: really mean to her and you know, showing her the
Speaker 1: bullets that came out of her and there was guns
Speaker 1: in the room and saying these were kind of guns
Speaker 1: that shot her, and you know, she was really really
Speaker 1: affected by it forever, you know, for years, basically you
Speaker 1: just did one movie know where she was or who
Speaker 1: she was or nothing for a long long time. For
Speaker 1: fear of the fact that the Zodiac could still be
Speaker 1: around somewhere, we reached out to John Hencelin after getting
Speaker 1: a tip from a zodiologist we met in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: We wondered how many other people no untold parts of
Speaker 1: this story and have held their tongues out of fear,
Speaker 1: because we fear that with every passing year, more clues
Speaker 1: may be lost forever. And we hope that those who
Speaker 1: do know something will come forward, because a single interview,
Speaker 1: a single story, can change everything. The thing that really
Speaker 1: happened that affected us again was July fourth murder at
Speaker 1: Blue Rock Springs. My sister was out with her boyfriend
Speaker 1: that night, and if you weren't home at midnight, yours
Speaker 1: a call in to you know, get clearance on when
Speaker 1: you're coming home or everybody where you're at. Well, it
Speaker 1: was fourth of July, so everybody was up late, and
Speaker 1: my mother was worried, and my sister wasn't home after midnight.
Speaker 1: So I had this multi band radio that got police calls.
Speaker 1: About ten after twelve, I get the radio out, we
Speaker 1: turn it on and started listening to the police calls
Speaker 1: and nothing major going on. All of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: report comes from Blue Rock Springs of brown Chevy with
Speaker 1: two kids in it and they were shot, and they're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, the kind of car, what the
Speaker 1: kids look like, and they looked like my sister and
Speaker 1: her boyfriend and he had a brown Chevy, and my
Speaker 1: mother was going nuts, and then they're saying the girl
Speaker 1: was dead and the guy wasn't and the bullets were nine.
Speaker 1: The moment lugers and we're all going nuts on what
Speaker 1: was going on. Five ten minutes later, my sister comes
Speaker 1: walking in the door and when, where the hell have
Speaker 1: you been? Do you know what's going on? And never
Speaker 1: really scared everybody, especially my mother. The weird thing about it,
Speaker 1: you know, years later thinking about it. Ten minutes later,
Speaker 1: that's when the Zodiac called the police station to report
Speaker 1: a double murder and told everybody, you know, it was
Speaker 1: a nine milliment or louder. And when he sent the
Speaker 1: letter to the paper, he said, to prove that I'm
Speaker 1: who it was that killed him, I'll tell you only
Speaker 1: things that I know, and the police no. But if
Speaker 1: you go through and read the police reports, it's almost
Speaker 1: word for word, verbatim on what the police said in
Speaker 1: the police reports and exactly what I heard the police
Speaker 1: say on the radio that night. So you know, it
Speaker 1: makes sense that it was somebody from Valleo, somebody that
Speaker 1: was in that area and had a scanner in your
Speaker 1: car or something and heard everything because you know, he
Speaker 1: said the things before any of the police are words
Speaker 1: ever came out. So it was a coincidence that the
Speaker 1: guy knew everything that the police knew, and he actually
Speaker 1: repeated everything that we heard on the radio. A man
Speaker 1: in a mask robbed and tied and stabbed them, leaving
Speaker 1: them for dad. Subjects stated, I want to report a murder,
Speaker 1: no a double murder. I did it. A man who
Speaker 1: wore an evil style executioner's hood, carried a knife and
Speaker 1: gun and intended to use them. They haven't arrested me
Speaker 1: because they can't prove it. I'm not damn Zodiac. Who
Speaker 1: is the Zodiac and where is he? From My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: How Staff works and Tenderfoot TV, this is monster the
Speaker 1: Zodiac killer? Is the Zodiac? A man, a myth or
Speaker 1: something in between. As we conclude the season, we'll investigate
Speaker 1: one of the most frightening theories about the Zodiac, and
Speaker 1: we'll explore the Zodiac's legacy. How is he alluded capture
Speaker 1: for fifty years but still stuck in our minds? Where
Speaker 1: is the Zodiac now? And where will he fit in history?
Speaker 1: After Darlene Ferrin and Michael Majau were shot, someone called
Speaker 1: the police department to report a murder. If you will
Speaker 1: go one mile east on Columbus Parkway, you'll find kids
Speaker 1: in a brown car. They were shot with a nine
Speaker 1: millimeter luker, I also killed those kids last year, goodbye?
Speaker 1: Could that phone call have been just a cruel prank
Speaker 1: by someone who heard the police dispatch? And weeks later
Speaker 1: when the first letters arrived, how can we be sure
Speaker 1: that those letters were sent by the killer himself and
Speaker 1: not by someone else with access to information about the murders,
Speaker 1: a photographer or police officer at the crime scene, or
Speaker 1: an overly ambitious journalist. Dear editor, this is the murderer
Speaker 1: of the two teenagers last Christmas at Lake Herman. To
Speaker 1: prove I killed them, I shall state some facts which
Speaker 1: only I and the police know. One brand name of
Speaker 1: Ammo super X. Two ten shots were fired. And of
Speaker 1: course there's been theories over the years that they invented
Speaker 1: the Zodiac to sell more newspapers. Zodiac expert Michael Butterfield
Speaker 1: says some posit that the Zodiac killer was just an
Speaker 1: elaborate hoax, that there was no serial killer at all,
Speaker 1: just a letter writer linking together entirely separate crimes and
Speaker 1: I can't say that there wasn't any part of these
Speaker 1: newspaper editors who were seeing a green you know, saying
Speaker 1: oh my god, okay, well, this is gonna certainly spike
Speaker 1: our circulation. At the Lake berries a stabbing of Cecilia
Speaker 1: Shepherd and Brian Hartnell. The killer donned the zodiacs now
Speaker 1: iconic outfit and scrawled a message on the victim's car.
Speaker 1: He drew the crosshairs Zodiac symbol, listed the dates of
Speaker 1: the first three attacks, and wrote only four words v LEO,
Speaker 1: timber and by knife. But do the outfit and message
Speaker 1: on the car truly proved the Berryessa attack was linked
Speaker 1: to the other crimes. Could the attacker have been a
Speaker 1: copycat killer inspired by news stories about the Zodiac. Really
Speaker 1: only two things linked the Berryessa attack to the other killings.
Speaker 1: The attackers m o in handwriting analysis. But how accurately
Speaker 1: can experts determine the author of just a few words
Speaker 1: scrawled on the side of a car. And wasn't this
Speaker 1: attack with knives rope in a costume a deviation from
Speaker 1: the Zodiac's usual method. Most serial killers do follow some
Speaker 1: discernible pattern where the victims match some criteria. You know,
Speaker 1: But for someone who had committed two shootings of couples
Speaker 1: sitting in parked cars and lovers lanes at night and
Speaker 1: secluded areas, the fact that the Zodiac then showed up
Speaker 1: in a popular recreation area during the day, why did
Speaker 1: he change his m O from blitz creeg shootings at
Speaker 1: night to daylight stabbings of young couples sitting out on
Speaker 1: a lake. There's a theory that the attack at Lake
Speaker 1: Berryessa was a copycat killer who was inspired by what
Speaker 1: he read in the newspapers. Now, I don't think that
Speaker 1: the evidence supports that theory, especially the fact that experts
Speaker 1: have determined that the handwriting on the car door matches.
Speaker 1: Now you can disagree with the experts, But if it
Speaker 1: was the Zodiac, again, why this drastic departure from his
Speaker 1: previous m O, and then why no effort to communicate
Speaker 1: or take credit for it in any meaningful way. Strangely,
Speaker 1: the Zodiac never directly referred to the Lake Berryessa stabbing
Speaker 1: in any of his letters. This was his most iconic attack,
Speaker 1: and for someone who seemed to delight in boasting about
Speaker 1: his crimes, leaving it out seems odd. But Butterfield says
Speaker 1: there's one real weakness in any Zodiac coax theory, the
Speaker 1: murder of San Francisco cab driver Paul Stein. It's hard
Speaker 1: to imagine a scenario where the letter writer wasn't at
Speaker 1: least somehow connected to Stein's killing, because pieces of Stein's
Speaker 1: bloody shirt were included in the next three Zodiac letters. Now,
Speaker 1: it's possible that the Zodiac felt this was necessary because
Speaker 1: there was a lot of speculation about crimes that he
Speaker 1: had committed or crimes that were being linked to him
Speaker 1: in the media. He may have felt it was necessary
Speaker 1: to prove beyond any doubt that he was responsible for
Speaker 1: that crime. So we can safely link the Zodiac letters
Speaker 1: to the murder of cab driver Paul Stein. But could
Speaker 1: the fixation on finding a single suspect responsible for all
Speaker 1: of the crimes have led investigators to discount viable suspects
Speaker 1: for some of the crimes. For example, is it possible
Speaker 1: that prime suspect Arthur Lee Allen was actually a copycat killer.
Speaker 1: He admitted to police he had bloody knives in his
Speaker 1: car on the day of the Lake Barriesa stabbings knives
Speaker 1: he leaned he used to slaughter chickens. Could it be
Speaker 1: that Alan was responsible for the berries a static but
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with the other Zodiac murders or
Speaker 1: any of the letters. But I'm not the Zodiac killer.
Speaker 1: I know that. I know that deep in my shoul.
Speaker 1: When Valleo Place searched Arthur Lee Allen's home, they discovered
Speaker 1: some clippings about the Zodiac case. Although we don't know
Speaker 1: precisely what those were, some of them may have been
Speaker 1: related to the book Zodiac. If I could go back
Speaker 1: and give myself some advice, the very first piece of
Speaker 1: advice I would give myself is be skeptical of everything. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: Michael Butterfield believes in a simple explanation for the Zodiac crimes.
Speaker 1: The Five Bay Area murders, the phone calls, and most
Speaker 1: of the letters were the work of a single man,
Speaker 1: a man we know only as the Zodiac. As I
Speaker 1: have always said, I believe the fingerprints, the handwriting, the DNA,
Speaker 1: the palm print, I believe those things belong to the killer.
Speaker 1: And when they actually do find the killer, I believe
Speaker 1: that evidence will match him and we will be able
Speaker 1: to write the end of this story. But there are
Speaker 1: many points of disagreement between different investigators, and there's still
Speaker 1: debate about the scope of the Zodiac's crimes. Which letters
Speaker 1: did the Zodiacs send and which were forgeries, how much
Speaker 1: can we trust the witness identifications, and who are the
Speaker 1: confirmed victims. You have to be careful when you're discussing
Speaker 1: possible Zodiac crimes because once you assume that another crime
Speaker 1: has been committed by the Zodiac, you're taking on all
Speaker 1: the elements of that case, including the evidence. So in
Speaker 1: a case like the Riverside murder of Sherry Joe Bates
Speaker 1: in six, there is DNA associated with that case. And
Speaker 1: if you assume that the Zodiac is responsible for the crime,
Speaker 1: and then you have a suspect whose DNA does not
Speaker 1: match the DNA and the Riverside case, you could mistakenly
Speaker 1: exclude someone because it is possible that the Riverside case
Speaker 1: is not connected to the Zodiac and therefore the Zodiacs
Speaker 1: DNA would have nothing to do with the Riverside case.
Speaker 1: The same applies to the failed abduction of Kathleen John's
Speaker 1: in Vy. You have to be very careful because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it's perfectly possible the Zodiac
Speaker 1: was not involved at all. Even in a podcast of
Speaker 1: this length. There are many theories and clues we haven't
Speaker 1: been able to explore, like the water theory. Many Zodiac
Speaker 1: killings occurred by bodies of water or at locations named
Speaker 1: after water, Blue Rock Springs, Lake Herman, Lake Berriessa. Did
Speaker 1: he intentionally pick these places for that reason? And could
Speaker 1: this therefore be a clue. The water theory also seems
Speaker 1: to fit the murders of Sherry Joe Bates in Riverside,
Speaker 1: and of Robert Dominguez and Linda Edwards, who were killed
Speaker 1: on a beach in Santa Barbara, and even Donna Lass
Speaker 1: who disappeared from Lake Tahoe, and Dana Lull who was
Speaker 1: dropped down a mine shaft off Mountain Springs Road. And
Speaker 1: many wonder about the Zodiac's apparent fascination with the Makado,
Speaker 1: a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. In three later letters, the
Speaker 1: Zodiac paraphrased lyrics from the Macado as someday it may
Speaker 1: happen that a victim must be found. I've got a
Speaker 1: little list. I've got a little list of society offenders
Speaker 1: who might well be underground, who would never be missed,
Speaker 1: who would never be missed, there is the pestilential nuisances
Speaker 1: who write for autographs, all people who have flabby hands
Speaker 1: and irritating laughs, all children who were up in dates,
Speaker 1: employee with implatte, all people who were shaking hands, shake
Speaker 1: hands like that, and all third persons with spoiling kick.
Speaker 1: Those who insist they'd none of them be missed, they'd
Speaker 1: none of them be missed. In fact, the Zodiac's letters
Speaker 1: alluded to many works of popular culture. When he talked
Speaker 1: about shooting victims with an electric flashlight attached to the
Speaker 1: barrel of a gun, that might have come from an
Speaker 1: episode of Alfred Hitchcock presents. Another thing that he wrote
Speaker 1: on a letter about methods of killing by knife, by fire,
Speaker 1: by gun and rope might have come from an old
Speaker 1: comic book. You know. He referred to the Blue Meanies
Speaker 1: in the movie Yellow Submarine. And it appears that at
Speaker 1: a certain point the Zodiac started writing letters as a
Speaker 1: media critic. He complained that the movie The Exorcist was
Speaker 1: a satirical comedy. He complained about the glorification of violence
Speaker 1: in the movie The bad Lands, and in turn, the
Speaker 1: Zodiac greatly impacted pop culture himself. For example, consider the
Speaker 1: Zodiac school bus threats. He almost goes to a symbol
Speaker 1: of innocence school children, not of us. That's like, you know,
Speaker 1: killing a grandmother. It's particularly diabolical. That's Peter Richardson, historian
Speaker 1: and lecturer at San Francisco State University. And interestingly, that's
Speaker 1: the part that creates the afterlife for the Zodiac as well,
Speaker 1: because that incident is what gets Clinton Eastwood's first big movie,
Speaker 1: Going Dirty, Harry his first big star turn. I know
Speaker 1: what you're thinking, Bitty by her six shots are only five?
Speaker 1: Being this supporting for Magnet, the most powerful handgun in
Speaker 1: the world, you get to ask yourself one question, Do
Speaker 1: I feel lucky? Well? Do your bunker? The influence of
Speaker 1: pop culture may explain why there are so many theories
Speaker 1: and so much misinformation about the Zodiac case, But why
Speaker 1: has the Zodiac in particular fascinated the public for the
Speaker 1: last fifty years. Here's San Francisco Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan.
Speaker 1: I've covered a lot of killers with a lot higher
Speaker 1: body counts and a lot more sick, twisted ways of
Speaker 1: killing people. William Bond on the freeway killer. That guy
Speaker 1: killed forty boys, raped him in a van tortured him,
Speaker 1: killed him in horrible ways, and throw him out naked
Speaker 1: on the freeway. That's a little worse than what the
Speaker 1: Zodiac did. I find it kind of sad because the
Speaker 1: thing that makes it interesting is this guy was theatrical
Speaker 1: that if it hadn't been for the ciphers and the
Speaker 1: taunting letters in particular, no one would remember this guy.
Speaker 1: The Zodiac's killings are theatrical. They almost feel ripped from
Speaker 1: the pages of crime fiction. There's a masked villain cryptic
Speaker 1: codes said to contain his identity in the murders of
Speaker 1: teenagers who made the tragic mistake of going to a
Speaker 1: lover's lane. Michael Butterfield thinks this helped sustain the Zodiac's infamy.
Speaker 1: That's always been part of the horror story lexicon, the
Speaker 1: idea of the lover's lane killer, you know, the guy
Speaker 1: with the hook and all those stories. So that just
Speaker 1: it into that and it was terrifying on a whole
Speaker 1: new level because, unlike those other stories that you hear
Speaker 1: about the hook man or whatever, this guy actually shows up.
Speaker 1: One of the things that was most terrifying about it
Speaker 1: was the fact that these people were selected at random,
Speaker 1: that they were young kids who had so much going
Speaker 1: for them. I think people can understand more when you
Speaker 1: know it's I hate to say it, when someone's raped
Speaker 1: and murdered, you can understand why the person did it,
Speaker 1: what their motive was. And maybe our hesitancy to talk
Speaker 1: about sexual violence helps explain his prominence as well. Maybe
Speaker 1: the fact that the Zodiac was just a killer who
Speaker 1: didn't torture or sexually assault his victims made his crimes
Speaker 1: easier to discuss. In a culture obsessed with violence but
Speaker 1: squeamish about sex, we are surrounded by violence all the time,
Speaker 1: but we're not aware of that. If you want proof,
Speaker 1: just look at the television listings for any given day
Speaker 1: of the week and think about how many of the
Speaker 1: shows revolve around homicidal by lence. David Schmidt is an
Speaker 1: English professor at the University of Buffalo. He's an expert
Speaker 1: on the intersection of crime and popular culture. We spoke
Speaker 1: with him to try and understand America's fascination with violence.
Speaker 1: You will find that it's everywhere, and yet we don't
Speaker 1: see it because we've become so used to it now.
Speaker 1: Part of the reason for this is that popular culture
Speaker 1: that deals with violence is always faced with a problem,
Speaker 1: how do you make violence entertain him but also make
Speaker 1: it possible for the viewer not to feel guilty about
Speaker 1: enjoying violence, and popular culture has been incredibly successful in
Speaker 1: coming up with a variety of ways to quite frankly,
Speaker 1: let viewers off the hook. So, for example, big fans
Speaker 1: of C. S I. They will tell you, well, I
Speaker 1: don't really like the violence. I just watch it because
Speaker 1: I'm interested in forensic technology. Or fans of the Law
Speaker 1: and Order franchise will say, yeah, it's very violent, but
Speaker 1: I learned so much about the legal process from watching it.
Speaker 1: Popular culture provides them with reasons to justify their interest
Speaker 1: in violence, and so after a while that violence becomes
Speaker 1: just an invisible part of the background. We don't want
Speaker 1: to think about it, we're not made to think about it,
Speaker 1: so there's no reason for us to see it. And
Speaker 1: Schmidt says media often popularizes or even glorifies serial killers.
Speaker 1: Not long after I moved to the US, the Science
Speaker 1: of the Lamb's film came out, and the Night of
Speaker 1: the Oscars broadcast began with Billy Crystal being wheeled out
Speaker 1: onto the stage with a hockey mask on like Hannibal
Speaker 1: Lector in the film, and now your host, Mr Billy Crystal,
Speaker 1: I'm having some of the academy over for dinner. Care
Speaker 1: to join me? And the entire broadcast was basically a
Speaker 1: tribute to that character. So I'm sitting there watching this
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking to myself, what does it say about
Speaker 1: temporary American society that this type of event is dedicated
Speaker 1: to a fictional, cannibalistic serial killer. And I realized at
Speaker 1: that point. The popularity of the film version of the
Speaker 1: Silence of the Lambs can be explained, among other things,
Speaker 1: by the fact that the film is very, very clever
Speaker 1: in allowing us to maintain some kind of identification with
Speaker 1: Hannibal Lectera. He's highly educated, he is apparently a genius,
Speaker 1: and in the film he quite literally walks off into
Speaker 1: the sunset, almost like you know, the hero walking off
Speaker 1: into the sunset. I do wish we could chat lander,
Speaker 1: but I'm having an old fan for dinner, and it's
Speaker 1: true he is the hero of the film. To some extent.
Speaker 1: There are parallels between the depictions of the Zodiac in
Speaker 1: Hannibal Lecter. The Zodiac is often presented as a criminal mastermind,
Speaker 1: an expert marksman, and a crafter of uncrackable codes and stories,
Speaker 1: often for us on him to the exclusion of telling
Speaker 1: the stories of his victims or examining why his story
Speaker 1: is important to tell. Now, if you can trast a
Speaker 1: film like Signs to the Lambs with a film like
Speaker 1: Natural Born Killers, it deals with many of the same issues,
Speaker 1: but rubs on noses in the fact that we make
Speaker 1: serial killers celebricies. That's not something the audience wants to
Speaker 1: be reminded of because it makes us feel guilty, It
Speaker 1: makes us feel uncomfortable, and it makes us have to
Speaker 1: ask difficult questions of ourselves about why we find this
Speaker 1: entertain him. Popular culture about serial killers is not dedicated
Speaker 1: to making us ask difficult questions. Instead, it gives us
Speaker 1: easy answers. That's what we find appealing about it. Criminologist
Speaker 1: James Fox says most people's fascination with serial killers comes
Speaker 1: in three forms. There are some who are fascinated because
Speaker 1: they had iify with the victims, and they want to
Speaker 1: make sure that they're not the next one. And and
Speaker 1: then you have a few who enjoy fantasizing about what
Speaker 1: it would be like to do what that person did.
Speaker 1: The other form of fascination, which is the most common,
Speaker 1: is it's just so different from everyday life. People can
Speaker 1: be entertained by real stories of real serial killers in
Speaker 1: the same way they get entertained by someone like Hannibal Elector,
Speaker 1: who's a fictional character. The serial murder is so out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary that it might as well be fiction.
Speaker 1: Then for most people true crime and crime fiction it
Speaker 1: feels the same, and it's just for them entertainment because
Speaker 1: they don't feel personally threatened. Most people will never ever
Speaker 1: encounter someone like the Zodiac. Having covered crime for decades,
Speaker 1: reporter Kevin Fagan avoids glorifying the Zodiac. I think it's disgusting. Glamora,
Speaker 1: someone of freaking kills people come on. When I was
Speaker 1: a young reporter, I thought, oh wow, this is really fascinating.
Speaker 1: I've watched people burned to death. I've stood over bleeding
Speaker 1: bodies while they bled out. I've been shot at the
Speaker 1: Glamor goes away. I can't even watch TV crime shows.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, let's have entertainment with the death. When
Speaker 1: you talk to survivors of victims have been killed, you
Speaker 1: get it. You get that this is not fun. There's
Speaker 1: nothing fun about murder and you know wacky ciphers and
Speaker 1: letters that you know taunt and say, I like hunting
Speaker 1: the most dangerous game. Yeah, great, the guy belongs in
Speaker 1: freaking prison. America was going through big changes around the
Speaker 1: time of the Zodiac murders. Between nineteen sixty and nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: America's violent crime rate more than doubled, and, aside from
Speaker 1: a few temporary dips, violent crime continued to increase until
Speaker 1: it peaked in Since then, it's fallen dramatically, and today
Speaker 1: violent crime levels are actually about where they were when
Speaker 1: the Zodiac's Bay Area crimes started. The number of serial
Speaker 1: killers has followed a similar trend as violent crime overall,
Speaker 1: rising dramatically in the nineteen sixties and peaking in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties before dropping off. There are still serial
Speaker 1: killers out there, but because of advancements in technology from
Speaker 1: cell phones to forensic DNA techniques, most serial killers get
Speaker 1: caught after just a few crimes and so rarely make
Speaker 1: the headlines. Despite our society getting much safer, our fears
Speaker 1: about crime have heightened. Gallop Poles show that over the
Speaker 1: last two decades, most Americans have felt crime was increasing,
Speaker 1: when in fact the opposite was true. Here's Michael Butterfield.
Speaker 1: I know I'm terrified of serial killers, even though the
Speaker 1: odds of me being killed by one are extremely low.
Speaker 1: But I think that some way, it's a way in
Speaker 1: which we confront our fears. It's easier to look at
Speaker 1: a true crime case from afar than it is to
Speaker 1: be in it yourself. When I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: was interested in true crime, but people used to think
Speaker 1: that was weird. Now true crime is very popular. It's
Speaker 1: very trendy, and I don't know why, but I think
Speaker 1: that we all need to remember that this is not entertainment,
Speaker 1: that it is a tragedy and treated as such. There
Speaker 1: might be some fascinating and sensational elements of the case.
Speaker 1: It certainly is compelling, but it's also a very real,
Speaker 1: human tragedy that continues to affect real people today. Over
Speaker 1: the years, I've talked to some of the friends and
Speaker 1: family of the victims, and it has a tremendous impact
Speaker 1: on them, even to this day. It's bad enough to
Speaker 1: have a loved one or friend murdered and have that
Speaker 1: murder remain unsolved, to go through life without any kind
Speaker 1: of closure, but it's another thing to see that murder
Speaker 1: repeated in re enactments over and over and over again
Speaker 1: for decades, and to have every aspect of the crime,
Speaker 1: every aspect of the victim's life, scrutinized under a microscope,
Speaker 1: and every time it comes up, nothing comes of it.
Speaker 1: So that kind of frustration, that kind of grief, is
Speaker 1: unique in many ways. I don't think a lot of
Speaker 1: us can really understand what that's really like unless we
Speaker 1: go through it ourselves, and hopefully we won't. Dean Farren
Speaker 1: was the husband of Darlene Farren, the woman who was
Speaker 1: shot and killed on July nine, sixty nine at Blue
Speaker 1: Rock Springs. It was difficult. I had a girl take
Speaker 1: care of one thing that I remembered. It my boss
Speaker 1: and we were friends at the time, but we turned
Speaker 1: out to be best friends over the years. We went
Speaker 1: through a lot of weddings and divorces and deaths and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I worked for him for twenty years. So but anyway,
Speaker 1: he came over that next morning and banging on my
Speaker 1: door and I said, I don't want to get up.
Speaker 1: I got nothing to live for, you know, I just
Speaker 1: all depressed. And he said, get up off you're lazy ass.
Speaker 1: You gotta eat today because you gotta ship tomorrow. It
Speaker 1: was his way to day life goes on. You know,
Speaker 1: you gotta make the best of what you got. And
Speaker 1: I'm reading that kind of kickstarre to me. I guess
Speaker 1: got me going and said, okay, okay, I gotta go on.
Speaker 1: I'll but we did so at that time, I I
Speaker 1: didn't know where I was gone. Okay, I'm angry about
Speaker 1: the situation, But who'd you get mad at her? How
Speaker 1: do you express that angry? You can't just punch anybody,
Speaker 1: or there's really nothing you can do, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of wait, now, okay, the police will take care of
Speaker 1: this and then we'll find out what what happened. Here
Speaker 1: we are fifty years later and nothing yet. Last episode,
Speaker 1: we spoke to investigator Paul Holes about his work on
Speaker 1: the Golden State Killer case. He's spoken with many survivors
Speaker 1: of horrific crimes when we caught the Golden State Killer.
Speaker 1: For these victims, for some of them, there was that
Speaker 1: instant peace of mind that he is not going to
Speaker 1: come back, and for many of them, they at least
Speaker 1: had an answer as to who. But it doesn't erase
Speaker 1: the trauma, and it doesn't bring the loved one back.
Speaker 1: This term closure, you know, which is a controversial term.
Speaker 1: These people don't experience closure like that part of my
Speaker 1: life is over. It will live with them for the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives. If the Zodiac is identified, I
Speaker 1: would expect that those who survived the Zodiac's attacks, or
Speaker 1: those victims families, they're not going to get a sense
Speaker 1: of closure. And they know that. These people know that
Speaker 1: they're not going to be okay, I can now just
Speaker 1: erase that chapter out of my life and be happy.
Speaker 1: But they will at least get an answer, you know,
Speaker 1: and maybe they'll get justice, but it's not going to
Speaker 1: change the trauma. And and that's for the people that
Speaker 1: have not lived that, you know, that's maybe the hard
Speaker 1: thing for them to understand. People want endings. Endings are
Speaker 1: psychologically satisfying. So I hope that the case will be
Speaker 1: solved and that ending will be provided to us. The
Speaker 1: alternative is to at least find out what the hell
Speaker 1: actually happened, because as an investigator, and Arlow told me,
Speaker 1: when you're doing a homicide investigation, the first thing you
Speaker 1: have to do is find out what actually happened. I
Speaker 1: think the best way to end the show is by
Speaker 1: telling the truth, and that's not usually what happens. People
Speaker 1: claim that they have solved the case. They say, this
Speaker 1: is the killer. I've identified the killer, and then some
Speaker 1: people are satisfied by that because ultimately, what people want
Speaker 1: as an answer, and some people will take any answer
Speaker 1: as opposed to the correct answer. Each passing anniversary of
Speaker 1: the case means that we've lost another year with no resolution,
Speaker 1: and it often means that we lose some of the
Speaker 1: people who are involved in the case. We lose their insight,
Speaker 1: their experiences, their memories, and a lot of information that
Speaker 1: might help us understand that case. Today, there's often a
Speaker 1: sentiment among people who are not involved in these cases
Speaker 1: where they seem to think that there should be a
Speaker 1: time where you move on, that you should let it go.
Speaker 1: And I think that the families of the victims would
Speaker 1: argue other wise. So what hope remains for the Zodiac case.
Speaker 1: Someone could still come forward and confess on their deathbed,
Speaker 1: revealing Paul Stein's driver's license as proof, or that evidence
Speaker 1: could turn up in an attic or an estate sale.
Speaker 1: The unsolved ciphers could still reveal an identity or some clue,
Speaker 1: or they could just be gibberish. Maybe, as we discussed
Speaker 1: last episode, DNA tests of a letter will finally pinpoint
Speaker 1: a suspect, or maybe he'll be identified through DNA from
Speaker 1: a seemingly unrelated case. I think it's very possible that
Speaker 1: he committed other crimes under another persona. I don't think
Speaker 1: most people would believe that someone like the Zodiac could
Speaker 1: simply stop killing, So we have to take him at
Speaker 1: his word that he continued to kill, only he made
Speaker 1: his crimes look like accidents or robberies. If that's the case,
Speaker 1: the Zodiac could have continued killing for a long time
Speaker 1: and we wouldn't know anything about it, because the only
Speaker 1: way we really knew he was attached to these crimes
Speaker 1: in the first place was because he called up the
Speaker 1: police or set letters to tell us. Regardless, we're running
Speaker 1: out of time to set the record straight. People are
Speaker 1: working on the case today. It's an active investigation. Police
Speaker 1: are trying to find a DNA match. Reporters like Kevin
Speaker 1: Fagan continue to cover developments, and the zodiologists chased down
Speaker 1: every lead they can find. If he's still alive, he
Speaker 1: might be watching all this and he might be terrified
Speaker 1: because look what happened to Joseph Gangelo in the Golden
Speaker 1: State Killer case. If they can find one relative of his,
Speaker 1: it's all over. Then all they have to do is
Speaker 1: just make out the family trees who fits the right
Speaker 1: age the description boom. So he's probably very worried, and
Speaker 1: he should be because people like me. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: stop people at did VPD, did San Francisco Police Department.
Speaker 1: That would be the biggest thing they could ever do
Speaker 1: is catch the Zodiac. And now that they know that
Speaker 1: it can be done with the Golden State Killer, there's
Speaker 1: every reason to keep trying. In Every Hope Monster, The
Speaker 1: Zodiac Killer is a fifteen episode podcast produced by iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio How Stuff Works in Tinderfoot TV. Johnald Alright and
Speaker 1: I are executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV, alongside
Speaker 1: producers Meredith Stepman, Mason Lindsay, and Christina Dana. Jason Hope
Speaker 1: is executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works, along
Speaker 1: with producers Trevor Young, Miranda Hawkins, ben Kybrick, and Josh Thane.
Speaker 1: Scott Benjamin provides additional voice talent. Matt Frederick is our host.
Speaker 1: Original music is by Makeup and Vanity set. If you
Speaker 1: haven't already, make sure to check out the first season
Speaker 1: of Monster called Atlanta Monster, about the Atlanta child murders
Speaker 1: from the late seventies to the early eighties. Download the
Speaker 1: tin episode season right now. Have questions or comments, email
Speaker 1: us at Monster at how Stuff Works dot com, or
Speaker 1: you can call us at one eight five six six
Speaker 1: six seven. Thanks for listening. If you feel ready to
Speaker 1: keep going on this journey, you can go to Michael
Speaker 1: Butterfield's website Zodiac Killer Facts dot com. You can connect
Speaker 1: with the Zodiologists on Tom Void's forum at Zodiac Killer
Speaker 1: dot com, and if you have a tip about the case,
Speaker 1: you can call our number one eight three three to
Speaker 1: five six six six seven. I think the most important
Speaker 1: thing someone can do is cut the facts away from
Speaker 1: the fiction and focus on the facts. And I think
Speaker 1: this podcast has done a lot to help people in
Speaker 1: that regard. But the simple fact is you should question everything.
Speaker 1: There's a a great line by a journalist who said,
Speaker 1: if your mother tells you that she loves you, you
Speaker 1: should still do your research and check it out. Anyone
Speaker 1: who is interested in learning more about the case, I
Speaker 1: would recommend that they spend time reading the actual police reports,
Speaker 1: the actual FBI files, and other official documents that they
Speaker 1: spend time looking at the evidence and using common sense
Speaker 1: and logic to examine all the information that's out there,
Speaker 1: because the true story of the Zodiac case is right
Speaker 1: there in those police reports. So that's it. Our regular
Speaker 1: season is over, but we're going to continue following new
Speaker 1: developments about the Zodiac and we'll be back soon with
Speaker 1: a whole new case. Thanks for listening.